DreamWorks released their latest movie How to Train Your Dragon to theaters on June 13th, 2025. They provided their long-time fans with familiar flying sounds and a few nice surprises.

The director is Dean De Blois, and this is the first live action film in the How to Train Your Dragon series of films. It is not another animated sequel. It has real actors, real sets, realistic CGI dragons. The studio believes in its artists and wants them to try new ways, and not make the film fully realistic or pixel-based.

Story and tone

The film begins five dragon years after the events of How to Train Your Dragon. Hiccup (Mason Thames) is now chieftain, Astrid (Nico Parker) is head of the village guard, and Toothless spends his time in the hidden valley and flies low over Berk’s new harbor. Problems arise when sky pirates on armored kites, reminiscent of Scandinavian hang gliders with fireworks, attack the village. They kidnap several baby dragons. Hiccup gathers the old riders, puts on new flying gear, and sets off on the rescue mission that made him famous in the first film.

De Blois maintains a balance of tone: there are quiet scenes at the fish huts to remind people why Berk is important, and there are high-altitude dangers that make people nervous. The jokes have softened, with more conversation and fewer physical gags between characters, but the film doesn’t become too self-indulgent. In a cute extra scene, a character tries to teach a little hobgoblin how to use the toilet, and everything turns out as normal as you might expect.

Animation and design

DreamWorks artists use painterly textures. Clouds lie all over the sky like pastel chalk, and dragon scales catch the northern lights when the story shifts to midnight latitudes. The new kite ships borrow their forms from the wings of gulls and the sails of Vikings, thereby, they look handmade rather than steampunk. The filmmakers even refine flight physics: Toothless stalls mid-loop, Hiccup adjusts the prosthetic tail fin, and the camera wobbles to convey slippery air. I saw it in laser projection – the deep blacks helped – but early comments from critics who saw it on press screeners on regular projectors suggest that the detail will remain good when the movie streams online.

Voice performances

Mason Thames still addresses Hiccup as an outsider, but recently he seems weary of morning meetings. That is what being a chief is all about.

Nico Parker shakes Astrid’s confidence and their arguing has the tension of two people who have fought over a dinner bill for ten years.

Music and sound

Composer John Powell returns to music which feels like sunshine and blue skies. He adds Nordic fiddles and frame drums to indicate the series is venturing into a bit older territory. The main flight song remains large, but is mixed with quieter string plucks for the baby dragons. Sound designers imitate all the sounds of wind during each dive and stop the soundtrack when Hiccup reaches for an injured raider horse. These choices work well in a small theater, and it will sound good to the home when the film is released online.

Themes

The story combines old traditions with new ideas. Hiccup believes he has already taught the people of Berk enough but from watching baby dragons they see that life is still difficult. Those raids are not random attacks – one of them makes flying charts that look similar to the old drawings Hiccup once made. The film shows that good things can come from strange places, but it is also a reminder of the new ideas that have no kind and can destroy everything. A little lesson and big dragon wings.

How to watch How to Train Your Dragon

Dreamworks and Universal haven’t announced digital or streaming dates yet. Usually the first subscription service is Peacock and 4K rentals on Amazon Prime video, Apple TV, and YouTube movies come next.

Pros

•  Animation shoves painterly surfaces and does not compromise clarity.
• Sky-pirate technologies are rough and humane.
• Generational inheritance and survival is a subject matter that sounds without being didactic.

Cons

•  Of the supporting Vikings, Snotlout is given the most screen time.
• The last fight plays on dusk lightings that can muddle the details on smaller screens.

Final verdict

In 2010, How to Train Your Dragon launched a new type of family animation. It is not a sequel to the movie Thunder coming out in 2025. The film used warm colors, improved textures, and older characters instead of numerous explosions. This makes a movie that is both honoring and moving the series forward. You will be leaving the movie with an old song stuck in your head with questions about what will happen when culture stops celebrating achievements and wants to know what comes next. Watch it in a theater if you can- the sky is too big to be pixelated by streaming. So take your pick of the version you like when it comes out.